App of the Week: My Secret Folder for iOS [Review]

Our first App of the Week is finally here. This time we are reviewing one of the finest app on AppStore, which is extremely useful if you have photos that you don’t want to store publicly in your Photos app. If you have noticed the Top Paid Apps list in the past few days or even the past weeks, you might notice that there is a catchy app named “My Secret Folder”. Indeed, it turned out to be a really great idea by Bright AI, the developer of the app. Let’s start from the icon. It might look like a folder with apps in it, which basically fooled some people for thinking that it is indeed a folder that contains app. Turned out that once you tap on it, a passcode screen appeared, requiring you to type in your passcode to enter the application.

Passcode

Now, what is interesting about the passcode form is that, it captures an image through the front camera (for iPhone 4 and above) on any attempt or logins to the app. The images are viewable on the app’s Settings panel alongside with the GPS location of the attempt, which basically lets you know who is attempting to login to your secret folder without your permission. Besides that, there is actually a “Decoy Mode” for it. You can set a passcode in Decoy Mode which allows you to login to your secret folder, but what you can see is a restricted folder, with no Settings panel and no files and folders shown. It’s just completely blank and new, which you can use just in case your friend is restlessly begging you to show him the contents in the folder. On the main screen, you can add an album from four options: Photos/Videos, Bookmarks, Notes and Contacts. Each of the folders can only store things that matches their category. For example, if you create a Photos/Videos folder, you can only store photos and videos in it. If you Create a Contacts folder, you can only store contacts into it. And so on. Once created the folder with a specific name, you can start importing datas from specific applications. For Photos/Videos, you can import them from your Photos application or shoot an image directly from the application. For Bookmarks, an in-app browser will appear and you can browse the web that you wish to add as a bookmark, and add it by tapping on the “+” at the bottom. For Notes, it will simply show up a notepad interface just like the Notes application, which allows you to type in private informations into it. By far this has the best interface on the whole app. Eventually for Contacts, this is a bit special. Instead of importing contacts from your Contacts application like others did, you can only add contacts manually yourself. Nevertheless, it has all the features from the Contacts app, such as photo and email options.

Settings

Now, let’s navigate to the Settings panel. All the required settings can be found there and they are arranged neatly. You can set both your passcode and decoy passcode, and you have the option to enable or disable photo capturing for both break in and login. You can even select a duration for auto logout, just like your device’s built-in passcode security. On the next section below is the slideshow settings. On all your Photos/Videos albums, you have the option to run a slideshow of all your images. And you can change all the settings here such as duration, transition, repeat and shuffle. The next section is where all your break in attempts are located. You can view all wrong passcode attempts and login attempts on that panel. All of them includes images and locations if you have enabled it. You can even clear them all at any point, when you want to.

An image of the intruder and attempted break-in location are showed.

Ease of Use

Overall, it is extremely simple and easy to use. The UI is that simple and almost everything is self-explanatory. All the Settings are well-arranged, which made it easier than ever to change your settings. There is also a Help Document included on the Settings panel which includes most of the FAQs that users need to ask about.

Summary

Yep, it is one of the must-have apps for your iOS device. In fact, I had never seen any app with this idea before, and that this is indeed pretty unique. If you have not jailbroken your device, you should know that you are unable to add a passcode to lock your Photos app, Notes app and such. And this app gave you the solution to add restrictions to your private datas. It definitely worths the buck.

How Could It Be Better?

Of course, nothing in perfect in this world, and we think that there are several improvements that can be made to make it better than ever. First, iCloud integration. Imagine if you have the app installed on few iOS devices, you can stream your information to all of them automatically. It would be a headache to transfer your information one by one, or through Photos Stream, as you cannot remove photos from Photos Stream at the time being. Next, wireless photo transfer. Transferring photos from your computer into the app is pretty annoying, especially in bulk. I wish there is at least an alternative way of transferring photos from the computer. A great way would be iCloud which will store your documents in the cloud, although there is a storage restriction.

[signoff]

Related posts:

Chris is the founder of iHelpBoard, founding the site with the intention of providing assistance on Apple products over the net on May 2011.
Right now, Chris serves as the Team Leader who guides the team, as well as the Head Support Assistant who guide the other team members in assisting others. You can contact Chris at [email protected]

Hi... I change the passcode from dotlock to numbers...then when i enter the new password i see all of my content disappear....pleaaaaaase help me....there was alot of personal pic n videos... I cant believe it....please help me